Best Outboard wiring

[Arpangel]

Fair enough, if you need one, fine.
But it’s my experience, and I’ve witnessed it in pro and bedroom studios alike, unless you keep bays well maintained, you’ll have issues, at some point, not if, but when.
The way I see it, it’s just more to go wrong, and solder tags on bays are almost mandatory, plugs front and rear, forget it.

[Hugh Robjohns]

My experience... Plugs front and rear, standard A-gauge domestic jackfield. Three years and counting no issues whatsoever. No maintenance necessary. Almost daily use.

... But I am using relatively expensive Signex CPJ48 panels. Buy cheap, buy twice (or get frustrated and throw the baby out with the bathwater!)

I wouldn't advocate adding a patchbay just because they look good. Good patchbays are expensive and obviously introduce potential points of failure. So if you don't need the flexibility of a patchbay don't use one.

But if you do need that flexibility the only other equivalent option is an electronic router or matrix system which is even more expensive.

For the OP, the question is really just about workflow. He has sufficient connectivity available to wire all three outboard devices directly to the DAW via his RME and Pulse interfaces. If he only needs to access the outboard units individually it will work perfectly well if connected that way.

The only downside to that approach is if he wants to daisy-chain the outboard devices since that will require several A-D/D-A passes in and out of the interfaces. Sound quality really won't be an issue with multiple A-D/D-A stages, but latency through the converters may well be.

In that situation it would be much better to use an analogue patchbay so that all analogue signal processing can be performed in the analogue domain, with only the complete chain's send and return passing through a converter.

If one unit is used more often than others it could be normalled across a set of interface send/returns, but when a chain of processing is needed (or a different unit to the default option) that can be over-plugged quickly, easily, and flexibly on the patchbay.

It's really just about workflow, flexibility, and convenience. But don't skimp on quality.

[Arpangel]

Hugh makes a good point, cheap bays aren’t good, you have to get the best, as he said, like Signex.
The sockets on cheap bays wear out very quickly, I had a friend who I used to jam with, he had a load of those cheap studio Spares bays, the number of times we had to stop using a bit of gear because of dodgy connections in the bay, that would take too long to sort out in a session.

[James Perrett]

I can remember having problems with patchbays in the old studio where smoky sessions were very common but the newer Studiospares patchbays that were only ever used in a non-smoking studio have been fine.

[The Elf]

All my (jack front and back) Samson S-Patch (not expensive) bays have worked perfectly from day one to today. I think I last re-wired around 8 years ago, to install my MADIFace/A32 combo, and I've not had to touch them since.

So is it the technology, or how it's implemented?

Come to think of it - same thing in 'the other place', where I wired up the bays at least 10 years ago. Samson S-Patch bays, jack front and back. Never a single problem.

[sonics]

I haven't used patchbays in years, but I used to have socket cleaning tools which I used regularly. For studios I hired (some of which were often too busy to do something as trivial as clean a patchbay) they were some of my best-ever toolkit purchases.

[Hugh Robjohns]

The Samson, like my Signex, use sealed jack sockets and/or enclose them in a box, which keeps almost all of the dust out. Much more reliable than the low-cost open contact variety. The quality of contact materials and contact design make a difference too.

Socket cleaning tools can only reach the plug contacts, of course, and do nothing for the normalling contacts. And the abrasive metallic ones can do more harm than good. Absorbent types that can be doused in a good cleaning fluid are probably a better option.

I've had positive results with these: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/krackle-killers

[The Elf]

I also have a couple of packs of those Krackle Killers, but I've got to be honest... I've never used them!